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Having already made history by advancing to the medal round, Canada closed out the preliminary games with a 72-63 loss to Australia Sunday.

No matter. They were one of the surprises of the tournament with an upset win over Brazil and their 2-3 record is good enough to advance.

Now, as a reward for their first trip to the Olympic quarterfinals, the Canadians get to face the No. 1-ranked Americans, who ran their Olympic winning streak to 38 games with an embarrassing 114-66 win over China Sunday.

The last time the Americans lost a game was six years ago at the world championships.

It was suggested to Canadian coach Allison McNeill that the outcome of Tuesday’s quarter-final game is a foregone conclusion.

“It probably is a foregone conclusion,” she said, “but we are going to go play. We’re going to show up and we’re going to play hard and we’re going to do the best we can to win that game. They are unbelievably good. The last time they lost was in the 2006 world championship and we were there.

“Russia beat them and then Australia beat Russia in the finals. We played with Russia. We played with Australia. Can we play with them? We’re about to find out.”

Canada has earned a lot of respect here. They were very competitive against both France (eighth in the world and 5-0 to top Group B) and the Australians, second in the world.

The Canadians missed their first four shots against the Opals Sunday and were down by 13 at the half. A 20-12 run in the third quarter got them back into it, spurred by a strong performance by 19-year-old Natalie Achonwa from Guelph, Ont. off the bench (seven points, four rebounds).

The Opals are big and Canada just doesn’t have the length to match up.

“They don’t look that big on tape,” McNeill said. “When you’re right down on the floor, they’re very, very big.”

Lauren Jackson, 6-foot-5, had 18 points for Australia and was clutch down the stretch as Canada fouled to try and stay in it.

“Lauren Jackson, I think, is arguably the best player in the world,” McNeill said. “People can pick other people, but who’s 6-5, can handle the ball, can shoot the three, made every free throw down the stretch, got some big rebounds? She’s a phenomenal defender. Watching her on film, she just knows what happens.”

Canada’s Shona Thorburn said she thinks the performance of the Canadians here has opened the eyes of some back home.

“They’re the No. 2 team in the world. You know what? We fought our butts off. We did,” said the guard from Hamilton. “We did it for 40 minutes and that’s what we can take away from this.

“I’m really proud of the way we played. We were in a really tough pool and we were in every game that we played. We get to play the No. 1 team in the world.”